1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector having easy to assembly staggered contacts.
2. Description of Related Art
In view of the increasingly improved operating efficiency of central processing units of electronic products, data transmission speeds of peripheral equipment have to be increased as well. Particularly, standard peripheral equipment, such as hard disks, optical disks, etc., are required to have faster data transmission speeds. Therefore, interfaces, which can transmit data at high speeds, have gradually become mainstream interfaces for electrically connecting electronic products and peripheral equipment.
An electrical connector, such as those meeting the Serial ATA specification, are designed to supply electric currents having different voltage values while being capable of transmitting electric signal data at high speeds, and can even be coupled to or detached from peripheral equipment when an electronic device is in an “on” state, achieving the so-called “hot plugging” effect.
However, in order to achieve the hot plugging function, the arrangement of conductive terminals in an electrical connector is generally modified to have different lengths. That is, for a conductive terminal dedicated to grounding, the length of its contact portion, which is disposed to electrically contact a corresponding electrical connector, is longer than that of contact portions of other conductive terminals that are dedicated to signal transmission. Thus, during the process of inter-engagement of the electrical connector and the corresponding electrical connector, the grounding portion will achieve electrical connection first. On the contrary, during the process of disengagement of the electrical connector from the corresponding electrical connector, the grounding portion will be the last to achieve electrical disconnection, thereby ensuring stability of data transmission.
Since conductive terminals of at least two different lengths are required, in the case of the currently adopted manufacturing process of using a machine to assemble the same to an insulating housing by “strip insertion,” it is commonly to punch long and short conductive terminals from the same material strip. However, it takes time to replace and adjust the molds. Another common way is to punch conductive terminals with same shape and insert them to different depths, but it occupies a stacked inter-engagement distance which takes a broad insulative base. One more problem existed in both proposals is that conductive terminals would move back in the contact receiving slot because of parallel contact insert direction and mating direction.
Hence, an improved electrical connector is desired to overcome the above problems.